Past Events
General Meeting November 25, 2020
Registration for Zoom meeting
Healthy Brain Aging
Lara Boyd is a Neuroscientist and Physical Therapist at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Boyd has held a Canada Research Chair and a Michael Smith Foundation for Health Career Scientist award, and has been a Peter Wall Early Career Scholar. Dr. Boyd directs the Brain Behaviour Lab at the University of British Columbia. Her work is centred on answering the question of what limits, and what facilitates, neuroplasticity. Dr. Boyd also serves as the Health Research Advisor to the Vice President for Research and is the university’s delegate to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Her TEDx talk “After this your brain will not be the same” has over 27 million views.
In this talk, Dr. Boyd will provide an overview of how the brain can change with learning and how these processes change as we age. She will discuss recent findings considering how behaviour can shape brain plasticity and impact age-related changes.
Time line
1:30pm Business Meeting
1:45pm Speaker - Lara Boyd
2:30pm Q&A
3:00pm End of meeting
Chancellor Installation
This virtual event will include elements of the in-person ceremony that are part of the installation tradition. This includes greetings from both campuses, welcomes and greetings from the Musqueam Band and Okanagan Nation Alliance, greetings from federal and provincial representatives, an installation citation, oath and gowning, as well as an address by Chancellor Point.
Following the installation ceremony, Chancellor Point will preside over UBC Vancouver’s fall graduation ceremony at 2:30pm, which you are also invited to attend.
Chancellor Point is a member of the Skowkale First Nation. He is a double alumnus of UBC with a Bachelor of Laws degree and honorary Doctor of Laws degree, and was the 28th Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia.
UBC's Chancellor is the titular head of the university, presiding over all major ceremonies, including graduation. The Chancellor confers university degrees and acts as chair of Convocation.
For details about the installation ceremony, including how to join, please visit: https://virtualgraduation.ubc.ca/chancellor
Wednesday, 25 November 2020 - 11:00am to 12:00pm
Poetic Odysseys - November 2020
All who are interested in writing, reading or listening to poetry are welcome.
Contacts:
Philip Resnick (Professor Emeritus, Political Science - philip.resnick@ubc.ca)
and George McWhirter (Professor Emeritus, Creative Writing).
Film Group November 23
After a COVID-19 imposed hiatus, we will re-activate the Film Group by taking advantage of the European Film Festival.
The films (with links to each film description and information on how to purchase each movie, viewing dates and the time of the planned Zoom discussion also indicated):
Angelo (Austria – directed by Markus Schleinzer, 111 minutes): Nov 21-22 – Zoom: Monday, November 23 at 4pm
Helene (Finland – directed by Antti Jokinen, 122 minutes): Nov 29-30 – Zoom: Monday, November 30 at 4pm
You will need to purchase the film yourself for $12 and watch the film within the indicated 48 hour window. Click on the link of the movie and you will find more information on how to purchase the movie. You can also buy a pass. More information is available on the EU website.
When: November 19, 23 and 30 at 4pm
Where: Zoom – Please register by email at manager@emerituscollege.ubc.ca
November 23 – Angelo
Based on the extraordinary true story of Angelo Soliman (1721-1796), a Nigerian born into slavery, the sophomore feature of Markus Schleinzer (whose acclaimed debut, Michael, arrived in 2011), Angelo is a stylish, quietly incendiary drama about power and race.
At the age of 10, Angelo is taken by force from his homeland. Surviving the arduous journey across the Atlantic, Angelo is purchased by a European countess in Vienna, who decides to turn him into the subject of an educational experiment. As time passes, Angelo grows closer to the Hapsburg society elites, becoming their costumed court curio and storyteller, telling exotic tales of faraway Africa to entertain this 18th century ‘enlightened’ Viennese high-society. To the shock of his ‘owners,’ he also secretly (and scandalously) marries a white woman, which will test not only the limits of Angelo’s social mobility, but Viennese society’s notions of itself as progressive.
For its limpid, austere visual style, Angelo has drawn favourable comparisons to the work of both Stanley Kubrick and Michael Haneke (Schleinzer worked with Haneke as a casting director). Despite its 18th century setting, this impressive, daring film is as timely and relevant as ever in its dramatic depiction and critique of race relations.
When: Monday, November 23 at 4:00 pm
Where: Zoom link by request to manager@emerituscollege.ubc.ca
Virtual Common Room Nov 20
Connection and camaraderie are foundation stones of the UBC Emeritus College.
College members are connected to our university by a number of threads that can be as slender or robust as we make them individually. These connections bring a parcel of benefits to us all, from library and email access to support for continuing scholarly activities. But interpersonal connections and the camaraderie that stems from familiarity, shared experiences and interests, and trust are also vital to a happy retirement, and precisely because they are less institutional, they are more vulnerable to attenuation in this time of COVID-19, when it is difficult for us to meet in person in groups of any size.
To combat this, we are opening a Virtual Common Room for Emeritus College members. It will be open – on Zoom – in term one, from 3:30 to 5 pm each Friday afternoon from September 18th to December 4th. Participation will be capped at 20. There will be no agenda. The intent is that you drop in (as some might once have to the Faculty Club of yore) to see who is there and share thoughts and conversations. One week we might talk about books – or about how the Canucks (almost) won the Stanley Cup; another about global affairs or the challenges of exercising during a COVID winter. Just show up and join in. Make new acquaintances, meet old friends, and (if you will) raise a glass to postretirement life (secure in the knowledge that you don’t have to drive – or cycle – home).
Register in advance for these meeting (at any point in the term).
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. There is no commitment to attend regularly or frequently. But only those who register as above will receive instructions for the Zoom meeting We will send an email reminder with registration details every couple of weeks.
I look forward to seeing you on my screen.
Graeme
Film Group November 19
After a COVID-19 imposed hiatus, we will re-activate the Film Group by taking advantage of the European Film Festival.
The films (with links to each film description and information on how to purchase each movie, viewing dates and the time of the planned Zoom discussion also indicated):
Snu (Portugal – directed by Patricia Sequeira, 94 minutes): Nov 18-19 – Zoom: Thursday, November 19 at 4pm
Angelo (Austria – directed by Markus Schleinzer, 111 minutes): Nov 21-22 – Zoom: Monday, November 23 at 4pm
Helene (Finland – directed by Antti Jokinen, 122 minutes): Nov 29-30 – Zoom: Monday, November 30 at 4pm
You will need to purchase the film yourself for $12 and watch the film within the indicated 48 hour window. Click on the link of the movie and you will find more information on how to purchase the movie. You can also buy a pass. More information is available on the EU website.
When: November 19, 23 and 30 at 4pm
Where: Zoom – Please register by email at manager@emerituscollege.ubc.ca
November 19 – Snu
Part love story, part political thriller, Patrícia Sequeira’s Snu is a fascinating biographical drama inspired by actual events that both scandalized and transformed Portugal in the 1970s. The film revolves around the elegant, fearless Danish publisher Ebba Merete Seidenfaden, who became known as Snu Abecassis, a woman who would challenge and confront Salazar’s dictatorship. After moving to Lisbon with her husband Vasco Abecassis in the 1960s, Snu devotes herself to building her new publishing house. She repeatedly releases controversial books, defying the PIDE (the nation’s International and State Defence Police) and, consequently, attracting its menacing attention. If that weren’t enough, her life will soon change utterly from the moment she meets an interviewee for a new book, in the person of prominent politician and future Prime Minister Francisco Sá Carneiro. Almost instantly, he becomes the great love of her life. Their affair shocks the conservative Portugal of the ’70s, and their public romance soon leads them into dangerous places and toward a mysterious, controversial fate.
When: Thursday, November 19 at 4:00 pm
Where: Zoom link by request to manager@emerituscollege.ubc.ca